Astral Biology?

[LordArt]

That's all fine and dandy... but it would seem to me that G6 is rather near pointelss then, you can argue that said calibur of density is worth the trouble, but really, it's not. In psionic "surgery" I've had to take the exact energy body elemnets you speak of and break them apart, and put 'em back together. All of this with that "gaseous" energy you so cassually dissmiss as weak.....I dunno, but that G6 seems simply silly. I'd sooner just use astral fabric directly, it's about the same density, and is (with rare exception) much safer.

I find it interesting(but far too typical) that you try to speak from the position of authority when your position is that of ignorance as demonstrated by your arguments. You don't even logic them out. How can you determine something is "silly" when you know nothing about said something? Do you REALLY think we would name something G6 if it's use didn't have quite useful properties. So much so that even where I am now, I still use said techniques from time to time. G6 is not just about being hard magic, but it's other "uses" (which I'm obviously not going to list in a public forum). The hard magic part was a bonus and something I could talk about. (Perhaps in the future it might be in your interests to actually ASK about something rather than making conclusions on ignorance)

As far as astral surgery goes, considering your description of what you've done, I highly doubt you've come across what I've referred to as the superstructure. I'd be surprised if you got past the astral body itself. Don't feel bad about it, most don't because they don't need to for most of what they do, but as I mentioned before, the astral body (and honestly most of one's guts lower down/further out) is like you describe, which is not what I'm refering to as super-structure, nor anywhere near it. Even getting to the "grid" is only like a tenth of the way in (don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about with that). You should have already realized from your exploits that the "spirit body"(for lack of a universal term here), isn't laid out like a human physical body is (The astral body can be made to seem so however). It's needs and functions are quite different if for no other reason then the environment it has to deal with.

"Astral" dimentional fabric is about a little over a third as dense, and depending on the aspects your talking about, not even that much of what is "yielded" with G6. I'm talking the WHOLE fabric, not the easily "scoopable" surface stuff. Again I find it interesting that you can compare something to something else when you haven't even seen the subject TO compare. And yet, you're so VERY sure that it's about the same density and that dimentional fabric is so much safer. In actuality, TECHNICALLY, G6 is the safest thing that anyone could EVER use. What makes it dangerous is it's initial aquisition. In some older rifting experiments, G6 spells were used to hold the "interferance zone" together, which more conventional gasious magic previously would fly apart quickly. (What we were doing was quite unstable and wasn't your "classic" rift). G6 was at the time, quite useful (if not required in certain cases) for high-energy experiments. Now we have stuff that superceeds it for such uses, but it's other aspects are still useful. It's still taught as a matter of course because of those uses and it's best for students to get a foundational aproach to what they are learning.

Gasious energy/magic IS weak in comparison to Hard Magic. It's like attacking a tank with a tooth brush. There simply is no comparison. If you knew what it took to actually CREATE hard magic, you wouldn't be so caveleer about your statements about it. Pre-G7 it simply can't be done, and even AT G7a, one has to use hacks to make it. (I'm talking about non-helped people here, not people using massive upgrades from technology bases many times or more higher then themselves that they got others to install.) G6 is a work around and doesn't create it, hence part of its limitation. That is not saying gasious magic isn't effective or useful. Each has their place. Using hard magic for certain things is really overkill. Gasious magic can do a lot, but has it's limits. If what you wish to do is within those limits, then it's not a problem.

In the end (and ofte in the beginning) it always comes down to the quality of programming and knowledge which decides the usefulness of an energy.

In that limited scope, that's true to point. I have found "programing" to be quite limited, hence tech, but that's a different arguement than I think your trying to say. I think your trying to say is skill and knowledge of what can be done with energy decides it's usefulness. But I would have to add to that "usefulness" is then defined by the limitations of the practitioner themselves. If you don't know of a use of an energy, then it is useless to you, even if others know differently. It's not useless to them. So in the end, is what determines that an energy is useful or useless definied by the nature of the energy or the knowledge/ability of the practitioner? I would say the practitioner, wouldn't you agree?

Example: one weak psi-nuke is a lot better than a super-dense psi-dart, get the picture?

I disagree completely. Perhaps that's my interpretation of terms, so I will define mine. Lets say we have a real weak nuke (as in physical nuke versus a very weak nuke) versus a unlimited fueled indestructable dart. Nukes do their damage from massive energy (heat and concusive blast) and radiation. Nukes can be stopped by enough lead shielding and cement (it's called a bunker) and causes a lot of collaterial damage. You use a bunker buster (ie. the dart, but they have them in real life as missiles/bombs), the dart cuts right through that cement and lead and gets inside the bunker and turns everyone into swiss cheese. So which got the people inside the bunker? The warm green glowy or the penatrator?

AHAA! I knew someone would bring that up! NO no and NO! a psi-nuke, by its nature undoes programming, the blast radius becomes too dynamic for programming to stick, an dmost add more programming to boot specifically to destroy all other programming, but I agree that stealth is always the best option, the dart vs. nuke was just an example. And indeed, by using stealth bypassing shields and dropping a that nuke in side the targetr's astral body... you don't want to start your morniung that way, I'll say that much. Anyway, darts can be good, but a seldomly encountered one both realizes that and puts it into practice when the big and boomy things are available.

I just have to laugh at this one.

Nice redefinition of terms. Naming something a nuke doesn't make it so. What's even more amusing is your "nuke" would be useless in a tech fight since even if it COULD get at the spell to "deprogram it", there is nothing to deprogram. I think the best you could do is make it forget it's target or something. I suppose it would depend on the design of the shield if it would DO anything. Meaning, it would depend on how much the intent or "programing" mattered to it's function (again, assuming it actually got affected). Naming something a nuke because it has a large area effect doesn't make it a "nuke", and jumping up an down going "NO no and NO!" because people are using a more conventional definition because you didn't provide one, doesn't help your cause. Now my friend Ogre, he can show you a nuke worthy of the name (Not that he doesn't have other things "worse")

Nukes are big and boomy, thus they are much more attractive to use.

Only to the foolish who can't do better. What's more impressive? To drop a bomb to hit a single individual taking out the crowd that they are with, or to surgicly take out said target in a crowd? Mass destruction takes no skill and shows little, precision takes skill and demonstrates it.

I imagine that UG4 is more of a total general energy system modiffiyer, doing what tech does best (making things eaiser).

An energy system modifier, I suppose so from a certain point of view. Does it make everything easier, most certainly, but it has more uses than "making everything easier", but one could say it's other uses gets back to the same category of "making everything easier"

And what's this? You aren't accepting new students for a "long time" after november?! Just make sure I'm on that little list, eh?

Yes, because you ordering it makes it so.  

[miri]

I find it interesting(but far too typical) that you try to speak from the position of authority when your position is that of ignorance as demonstrated by your arguments. You don't even logic them out. How can you determine something is "silly" when you know nothing about said something? Do you REALLY think we would name something G6 if it's use didn't have quite useful properties. So much so that even where I am now, I still use said techniques from time to time. G6 is not just about being hard magic, but it's other "uses" (which I'm obviously not going to list in a public forum). The hard magic part was a bonus and something I could talk about. (Perhaps in the future it might be in your interests to actually ASK about something rather than making conclusions on ignorance)

LordArt-->:flame: Though I can't say that your not sharing information helps eliminate ignorance to any degree... in my defence... I can say that you're correct... making observations based on limited information is something I shouldn't be doing. Hoever there's little one can say about omnimancy then...

As far as astral surgery goes, considering your description of what you've done, I highly doubt you've come across what I've referred to as the superstructure. I'd be surprised if you got past the astral body itself. Don't feel bad about it, most don't because they don't need to for most of what they do, but as I mentioned before, the astral body (and honestly most of one's guts lower down/further out) is like you describe, which is not what I'm refering to as super-structure, nor anywhere near it. Even getting to the "grid" is only like a tenth of the way in (don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about with that). You should have already realized from your exploits that the "spirit body"(for lack of a universal term here), isn't laid out like a human physical body is (The astral body can be made to seem so however). It's needs and functions are quite different if for no other reason then the environment it has to deal with.

"Astral" dimentional fabric is about a little over a third as dense, and depending on the aspects your talking about, not even that much of what is "yielded" with G6. I'm talking the WHOLE fabric, not the easily "scoopable" surface stuff. Again I find it interesting that you can compare something to something else when you haven't even seen the subject TO compare. And yet, you're so VERY sure that it's about the same density and that dimentional fabric is so much safer. In actuality, TECHNICALLY, G6 is the safest thing that anyone could EVER use. What makes it dangerous is it's initial aquisition. In some older rifting experiments, G6 spells were used to hold the "interferance zone" together, which more conventional gasious magic previously would fly apart quickly. (What we were doing was quite unstable and wasn't your "classic" rift). G6 was at the time, quite useful (if not required in certain cases) for high-energy experiments. Now we have stuff that superceeds it for such uses, but it's other aspects are still useful. It's still taught as a matter of course because of those uses and it's best for students to get a foundational aproach to what they are learning.

I made comparisons based on what I was told, the densest "stuff" I've found in "surgery" is denser than astral fabric, but not significantly, and concentration leads to more density, as always...

Gasious energy/magic IS weak in comparison to Hard Magic. It's like attacking a tank with a tooth brush. There simply is no comparison. If you knew what it took to actually CREATE hard magic, you wouldn't be so caveleer about your statements about it. Pre-G7 it simply can't be done, and even AT G7a, one has to use hacks to make it. (I'm talking about non-helped people here, not people using massive upgrades from technology bases many times or more higher then themselves that they got others to install.) G6 is a work around and doesn't create it, hence part of its limitation. That is not saying gasious magic isn't effective or useful. Each has their place. Using hard magic for certain things is really overkill. Gasious magic can do a lot, but has it's limits. If what you wish to do is within those limits, then it's not a problem.

I wouldn't know, for certian, I can't say that you guys have given any examples but comparisons, like toothbrush vs. tank...

In that limited scope, that's true to point. I have found "programing" to be quite limited, hence tech, but that's a different arguement than I think your trying to say. I think your trying to say is skill and knowledge of what can be done with energy decides it's usefulness. But I would have to add to that "usefulness" is then defined by the limitations of the practitioner themselves. If you don't know of a use of an energy, then it is useless to you, even if others know differently. It's not useless to them. So in the end, is what determines that an energy is useful or useless definied by the nature of the energy or the knowledge/ability of the practitioner? I would say the practitioner, wouldn't you agree?

I would agree...

I disagree completely. Perhaps that's my interpretation of terms, so I will define mine. Lets say we have a real weak nuke (as in physical nuke versus a very weak nuke) versus a unlimited fueled indestructable dart. Nukes do their damage from massive energy (heat and concusive blast) and radiation. Nukes can be stopped by enough lead shielding and cement (it's called a bunker) and causes a lot of collaterial damage. You use a bunker buster (ie. the dart, but they have them in real life as missiles/bombs), the dart cuts right through that cement and lead and gets inside the bunker and turns everyone into swiss cheese. So which got the people inside the bunker? The warm green glowy or the penatrator?

AHAA! I knew someone would bring that up! NO no and NO! a psi-nuke, by its nature undoes programming, the blast radius becomes too dynamic for programming to stick, an dmost add more programming to boot specifically to destroy all other programming, but I agree that stealth is always the best option, the dart vs. nuke was just an example. And indeed, by using stealth bypassing shields and dropping a that nuke in side the targetr's astral body... you don't want to start your morniung that way, I'll say that much. Anyway, darts can be good, but a seldomly encountered one both realizes that and puts it into practice when the big and boomy things are available.

I just have to laugh at this one.

Nice redefinition of terms. Naming something a nuke doesn't make it so. What's even more amusing is your "nuke" would be useless in a tech fight since even if it COULD get at the spell to "deprogram it", there is nothing to deprogram. I think the best you could do is make it forget it's target or something. I suppose it would depend on the design of the shield if it would DO anything. Meaning, it would depend on how much the intent or "programing" mattered to it's function (again, assuming it actually got affected). Naming something a nuke because it has a large area effect doesn't make it a "nuke", and jumping up an down going "NO no and NO!" because people are using a more conventional definition because you didn't provide one, doesn't help your cause. Now my friend Ogre, he can show you a nuke worthy of the name (Not that he doesn't have other things "worse")

The definitiuon of a nuke is a commonly accepted one in most psionic communities, http://psionic.150m.com/ is where I've seen it defined by the one who coined the term/tech... Also that No no and no bit was more of a joke than anything... I s'pose I'll have to label intended humor, just to be safe...

Only to the foolish who can't do better. What's more impressive? To drop a bomb to hit a single individual taking out the crowd that they are with, or to surgicly take out said target in a crowd? Mass destruction takes no skill and shows little, precision takes skill and demonstrates it.

I respond that most people are either foolish, destructive, or both.

An energy system modifier, I suppose so from a certain point of view. Does it make everything easier, most certainly, but it has more uses than "making everything easier", but one could say it's other uses gets back to the same category of "making everything easier"

Right... which is roughly what I said, just with more knowledge on the tech...

Yes, because you ordering it makes it so.

I'm glad you see it my way ( intended as Humor)

[Obsidian]

Woah, nice way to backpedal Miri. I'm impressed.

Art: Thanks for the explanation =) I've had it explained to me before but I think it makes a little bit more sense now. G6 isn't so much a power amp as an ability amp, which introduces you to the hard magic concepts, where-as the UG4 is the more 'traditional' power-boosting amp (like G4, hence the title).

Given what you've explained there about Hard magic... How does it relate to the physical world? Does energy have a certain 'gravity', pulling more of itself in to form larger masses/'wads'? If that were the case, I'd imagine the 'gravity' effect could be harnassed in it's own right. But then even something simple like an energy ball would create a disturbance and a localised 'pool' of gravity, wouldn't it.

I'm just trying to figure out how hard magic can remain solid with no external input (given the nature of most 'spells' degrading over time). Surely there'd be more to it than the density of the energy holding it together.

I believe I've experienced hard magic before. Would I be correct in assuming 'materials' are hard magic? I remember a few things I've been shown that stayed coherent with no power-source and were still untouchable (not just to me, but to other people I was with. Including a G4)

You mentioned in one of your posts, even at G6 you aren't 'creating' hard magic. Does the G6 amp give you the ability to remold and relocate the superdense energy, then? Or is there something else I'm missing *chuckles*

It's funny, really. Topics like this make me realise just how little I know about Omnimancy. It's really good, aside from the learning aspect, to get that cold splash of water in the face and see again how limited my understanding of things are.

Reminds me of all the people that assume they're ready and able to practice what you have, the people that KNOW they'll be able to deal with it. Even when faced with idea's like this, different from anything most people will ever experience outside of Omnimancy, they still feel they're ready for what's inside.

I think I'd be correct in saying all you can assume about Omnimancy is: On the forums, we've barely even seen the tip of the ice-berg *laughs*

[miri]

It's not so much "gravity" as the sheer density, itself, I ASSUME. Like a REALLY dense energy ball will take months, or years to by corrupted/fade away just from enviromental whatnots...

Powersourceless mods/tech is probably made to have it longevity in one of three ways. The most obvious is that it's really "hard" magic, the most-likely-to-come-from-me (and I think it's unlikely consdiering the Omni in general...) is it works with the energy body such that it's alomst a symbiotic thing, the field maintaining the tech that makes it strong... Probably the density though, given the amount of importance he gives the G6... Then there's three, I've only seen a few bits of omni-tech ever... they aren't "constructs," at first they seem like it, but they really aren't... it's more a series of independent magical prcesses, as best as I know how to describe it, no doubt LordArt could/maybe even would describe them better...

As for the iceberg metaphor, I couldn't agree more, that's the reason it's almost silly to ask questions and make assumptions based on my rather comparitively limited experience as I did above .But until they stop being this way, we'll just have to pick the limeted carcass of information here... or until they decide to start "stepping up to the plate and grabbing the bull by the horns" (intended as humor/a saying of my fathers) and processing students faster, in the meantime, everything we say is guesswork, from a point of ignorance... by no fault of our own.

[Obsidian]

Whilst it's true they don't give out much information (in the overall scheme of things), there's still a massive amount to digest on these boards. I wouldn't say our ignorance isn't our fault, mind you.

I'm probably in a bit of a different situation (I've had extensive contact with various Omnimancers in the past and present), but if I've been unsure of things I'll ask questions, rather than assume knowledge.

In most situations. I've assumed sometimes and quite literally had my ass (and various other things) handed to me. Painful *nods*

I've dealt with a fair bit of tech in my time (though nothing compared to these guys) and you're right. At first glance they seem like really well-programmed constructs. Deeper down though, they start to get far more complex and intricate.

What you mean by the 'density'... Are you trying to say there's so much energy packed into the space that even if it dissipates at the same rate as 'gaseous' magic spells do, it'll remain strong and 'together' for much longer?

That theory would work, until it comes to the Hard magic still performing tasks and such. Stuff that would shed the energy at a much-increased rate. With regular tech, it stops functioning if you disconnect the power source (an effective attack at times, really), but hard magic will keep on going on.

From my experience, however, the field has nothing to do with the tech/body of hard magic. Once it's in place, it sorta stays in place.

Perhaps there's tricks to power things internally *taps his nose*

[LordArt]

Though I can't say that your not sharing information helps eliminate ignorance to any degree... in my defence... I can say that you're correct... making observations based on limited information is something I shouldn't be doing. Hoever there's little one can say about omnimancy then...

One can say a lot about Omnimancy, even based on fact for what has been made available in the forums. It's not comprehensive, no. But by no means "little". If your saying little can be said versus everything that can be said, then that is correct. But little to me means almost nothing, so saying that one can say almost nothing about Omnimancy is false. But in the end, Omnimancy is a magical order whose secrets are kept...well, secret, so your not going to know the day to day stuff in it anyways. Nor is that going to change, so how is the lack of complete exposure surprising?

I made comparisons based on what I was told, the densest "stuff" I've found in "surgery" is denser than astral fabric, but not significantly, and concentration leads to more density, as always...

Concentrating something by definition leads to denser stuff, yes, but there are two important points that should be made. First, as you already know, the more one compresses energy, the harder it is to do so. So in the end, there is limits based on personal power to do so. Also, what is to keep that energy so dense? Expending a lot of energy to KEEP the energy dense is rather self-defeating (or any energy all for that matter). So by definition, Hard Magic is much more complicated then simply trying to compress magic as hard as one can.

Gasious energy/magic IS weak in comparison to Hard Magic. It's like attacking a tank with a tooth brush. There simply is no comparison. If you knew what it took to actually CREATE hard magic, you wouldn't be so caveleer about your statements about it. Pre-G7 it simply can't be done, and even AT G7a, one has to use hacks to make it. (I'm talking about non-helped people here, not people using massive upgrades from technology bases many times or more higher then themselves that they got others to install.) G6 is a work around and doesn't create it, hence part of its limitation. That is not saying gasious magic isn't effective or useful. Each has their place. Using hard magic for certain things is really overkill. Gasious magic can do a lot, but has it's limits. If what you wish to do is within those limits, then it's not a problem.

I wouldn't know, for certian, I can't say that you guys have given any examples but comparisons, like toothbrush vs. tank...

All knowledge is gained from a point of reference. In the end, everything references something else to compare against. In this society, if you speak about things that are outside common points of reference, it isn't understood, and/or looked upon like you've lost it. Thus the problems talking about hard magic and much of the stuff G7+. It has become almost a seperate school of magic because pre-g7 (with the exception of some creative UG4 students in conjunction with each other with lessor G7+ stuff) people just can't do G7+ things. It's been somewhat of a disappointment after a fashion for me because before then, I always knew that I could teach a student any of the higher level stuff and they could do it (so I could teach things out of order), but it is no longer true. The concepts and approach is just significantly different. Best to call it high-energy magic versus not.

I think I can give one example. When G7a was first discovered and used, I discovered a new (and first) Omni created power source. Up to that point we've been using naturally existing power sources (but much stronger than ley lines since that is moved away from early in the training). I told the rest of the group I wanted to show them something new I discovered but I didn't tell them what. I asked someone(Ogre I believe) to make their strongest shield in a seperate part of the room. I then "directed" the powersource at it. All they saw was this big beam of white light crash right through it and out the other side like it wasn't even there, taking out the shield in an instant. They were all impressed and went "Wow, you discovered a new weapon?" I went "No, that was a power tether". You can imagine the looks on their faces And that was the highest end tech shield it went against at the time. We had to start ripping out the power systems in spells and rewiring everything even to accept the energy without frying itself out, and that was task in and of itself, lemme tell you.

But that's the difference between high energy magic and not. Hard magic is part of that catagory. You don't need high energy or hard magic to do weather control, or make the traffic lights green or anything like that. But it's a WONDER for healing, and obviously combative magic. It also does a whole bunch of almost infinite other things as you might well imagine, that I won't get into here.

The definitiuon of a nuke is a commonly accepted one in most psionic communities, http://psionic.150m.com/ is where I've seen it defined by the one who coined the term/tech... Also that No no and no bit was more of a joke than anything... I s'pose I'll have to label intended humor, just to be safe...

Miri, Omnimancy ISN'T part of the psionic community nor are we "psions". We have no associations with them. I didn't even know what a psion was until 4 years ago. I only recently found out what OEC means, and we aren't a part of that either. Omnimancy came from a magical background and we came online in 2002, but Omnimancy had already existed from much earlier than that.

Why would you expect me to know a esoteric psion term any more than I might expect you to know a esoteric goetic term? I have cursery knowledge of a load of systems just so I can have conversations, but by no means am I an expert in other systems. I found out enough of psions to know that they have a good start but seem to limit themselves, and I suppose like any magical system that a person has only been exposed to, think that everyone else does it this way. Many of them honestly believe that what they do is not magic, but that's a whole seperate topic anyways.

Only to the foolish who can't do better. What's more impressive? To drop a bomb to hit a single individual taking out the crowd that they are with, or to surgicly take out said target in a crowd? Mass destruction takes no skill and shows little, precision takes skill and demonstrates it.

I respond that most people are either foolish, destructive, or both.

I won't debate that, but that wasn't the point. You were promoting your reasons for why a nuke was better than a dart. This was one of my counters.

I'm glad you see it my way ( intended as Humor)

No no, you don't need to worship me miri. That's not needed.

[miri]

One can say a lot about Omnimancy, even based on fact for what has been made available in the forums. It's not comprehensive, no. But by no means "little". If your saying little can be said versus everything that can be said, then that is correct. But little to me means almost nothing, so saying that one can say almost nothing about Omnimancy is false. But in the end, Omnimancy is a magical order whose secrets are kept...well, secret, so your not going to know the day to day stuff in it anyways. Nor is that going to change, so how is the lack of complete exposure sNot surprising, and I did mean relatively, what I hatew is teasing us with, ug4 ths and g7a this urprising?

It's not surprising, and I did mean relatively, what I hate is teasing us with, ug4 that and g7a this...

Concentrating something by definition leads to denser stuff, yes, but there are two important points that should be made. First, as you already know, the more one compresses energy, the harder it is to do so. So in the end, there is limits based on personal power to do so. Also, what is to keep that energy so dense? Expending a lot of energy to KEEP the energy dense is rather self-defeating (or any energy all for that matter). So by definition, Hard Magic is much more complicated then simply trying to compress magic as hard as one can.

I've found that skill and power is naturally quite directly related to knowledge, time, and competence, I mean that, by making the step of compression unneccesary... you make it unneccessary to be good to be good, if you understand my meaning. THough that's mostly if not entirely countered by the restrictive membership that I see as more and more appropriate the more information I squeeze out of you...

All knowledge is gained from a point of reference. In the end, everything references something else to compare against. In this society, if you speak about things that are outside common points of reference, it isn't understood, and/or looked upon like you've lost it. Thus the problems talking about hard magic and much of the stuff G7+. It has become almost a seperate school of magic because pre-g7 (with the exception of some creative UG4 students in conjunction with each other with lessor G7+ stuff) people just can't do G7+ things. It's been somewhat of a disappointment after a fashion for me because before then, I always knew that I could teach a student any of the higher level stuff and they could do it (so I could teach things out of order), but it is no longer true. The concepts and approach is just significantly different. Best to call it high-energy magic versus not.

I think I can give one example. When G7a was first discovered and used, I discovered a new (and first) Omni created power source. Up to that point we've been using naturally existing power sources (but much stronger than ley lines since that is moved away from early in the training). I told the rest of the group I wanted to show them something new I discovered but I didn't tell them what. I asked someone(Ogre I believe) to make their strongest shield in a seperate part of the room. I then "directed" the powersource at it. All they saw was this big beam of white light crash right through it and out the other side like it wasn't even there, taking out the shield in an instant. They were all impressed and went "Wow, you discovered a new weapon?" I went "No, that was a power tether". You can imagine the looks on their faces And that was the highest end tech shield it went against at the time. We had to start ripping out the power systems in spells and rewiring everything even to accept the energy without frying itself out, and that was task in and of itself, lemme tell you.

But that's the difference between high energy magic and not. Hard magic is part of that catagory. You don't need high energy or hard magic to do weather control, or make the traffic lights green or anything like that. But it's a WONDER for healing, and obviously combative magic. It also does a whole bunch of almost infinite other things as you might well imagine, that I won't get into here.

That's more like the information I was looking for... Not surprising, but this practice seems to be suprising in general, so best not assume you said nearly all of it...

Miri, Omnimancy ISN'T part of the psionic community nor are we "psions". We have no associations with them. I didn't even know what a psion was until 4 years ago. I only recently found out what OEC means, and we aren't a part of that either. Omnimancy came from a magical background and we came online in 2002, but Omnimancy had already existed from much earlier than that.

Why would you expect me to know a esoteric psion term any more than I might expect you to know a esoteric goetic term? I have cursery knowledge of a load of systems just so I can have conversations, but by no means am I an expert in other systems. I found out enough of psions to know that they have a good start but seem to limit themselves, and I suppose like any magical system that a person has only been exposed to, think that everyone else does it this way. Many of them honestly believe that what they do is not magic, but that's a whole seperate topic anyways.

I don't expect you to know, I just wasn't thinking about it... I'm too used to people reading knowing what I reffer to .



*no objection to response to quote*

I'm glad you see it my way ( intended as Humor)

No no, you don't need to worship me miri. That's not needed.

I'm starting to think I ought to though... based on a few unobtrusive scans... you could put on a show for most... if not all dieties/egregores/whatever-you-call'em's... (not humor)

[Obsidian]

Art > Deities.

Art > Most things =P

Other Omni's > Most things too, for that matter.

I wouldnt' want to incur the wrath of any on these forums =P 'specially not Ogre *nodnods*

That's quite impressive about the power source, Art. I was totally unaware you could actually 'create' power sources. I couldn't even begin to imagine the concept behind it at this stage, because creating energy is theoretically impossible (in the physical world).

A little confused by this, though. "... G7a was first discovered and..." <- You 'found' the G7 amp? The way you've written it there implies you didn't create it so much as you found it, in a pre-created form. Either way, it leads me to question: How DO you develop new amps? I know there's quite the few above G7a, even though G7a gives you (close to) godlike powers over the untrained. What purpose do the higher amps serve, aside from being able to hand everything it's own ass?

As a side note, I love how much this topic has deviated from it's starting place. It was about Astral Biology to begin with *laughs*

[LordArt]

It's not surprising, and I did mean relatively, what I hate is teasing us with, ug4 that and g7a this...

Well, I'm in a catch 22. Omnimancy came from a magical background. The documents online for the public aren't intended for psions, but for ritual magicians. When a psion comes across them, they instantly brand us as another fringe psion group and go on their merry way, not understanding that what is posted is what is talked and moved past the first few weeks of training. SO I don't have much of a choice but to drop massive hints that there is actually something behind the curtain, otherwise we just look like another rebadged psion group. But at the same time, I can't reveal the true goodies because then I'm being recklass. Some of the stuff is REALLY simple to the point that just the concept is the real gold. Most of omnimancy is what other people COULD do if they put their minds to it (at least <g4), and kinda kick themselves in the head for not thinking of it themselves when they learn it because it's so easy.

I've found that skill and power is naturally quite directly related to knowledge, time, and competence, I mean that, by making the step of compression unneccesary... you make it unneccessary to be good to be good, if you understand my meaning. THough that's mostly if not entirely countered by the restrictive membership that I see as more and more appropriate the more information I squeeze out of you...

I'm glad SOMEONE finally understand the reasons for the screening process.

As far as making it unneccessary to be good to be good, you have no idea. It's a REAL problem actually. Back in the older days, we would have people go through the training who could DO everything, but had no clue how any of it worked. It was giving Godzilla crack and letting them loose. It caused a few "issues" as you might well imagine. We cleaned up the mess and changed policy, you live and learn. Now people are tested and made sure that they KNOW what they are doing, rather than just being able to do it. Even so, it's still not the same level of understanding as if they had built it/researched it themselves, versus simply being handed effectively a text book/manual and do a lab on the subject. Like in many things in Omni, we have streamlined the learning process but it's lost something along the way. There is actually a push to go back to the old socrates learning methods, rather than going to an Omni Tech lunch-in.

...so best not assume you said nearly all of it...

Good insight.

Art > ...

Let's just not go there. There is always a bigger fish.

Other Omni's > Most things too, for that matter.

Actually most Omni's aren't. Ok, that's probably not true. If you use a 1/x style curve of saying that the more there are at a certain level, the weaker they are (which is true from what I've seen) then yes. But then that could be true of yourselves too depending where on the curve you are. In anycase, omni's are trained to hold their own against most things that would bother them. Anything bigger, they get the bigger Omnis involved, or research to become a bigger Omni.

I wouldnt' want to incur the wrath of any on these forums =P 'specially not Ogre *nodnods*

You are wise to come to such a conclusion about Ogre.

That's quite impressive about the power source, Art. I was totally unaware you could actually 'create' power sources. I couldn't even begin to imagine the concept behind it at this stage, because creating energy is theoretically impossible (in the physical world).

Keep in mind, I created the power source. The power source isn't "creating" energy. It uses "fuel" and transforms it into usable energy. The difference in "creating" a power source rather than tapping in on one is that now one is able to have a spell that effectively can add massive amounts of power to other spells and yield more power than naturally occuring power sources (at least accessable ones). The "fuel" is rather abundant. (I wrote more here but I erased it getting too indepth. Like anything higher up, the bigger it is, the more it hurts when it screws up, so I don't want people trying to make mini-versions and finding the balance point doesn't work without sufficent magical stength and hurting themselves or worse)

A little confused by this, though. "... G7a was first discovered and..." <- You 'found' the G7 amp? The way you've written it there implies you didn't create it so much as you found it, in a pre-created form. Either way, it leads me to question: How DO you develop new amps? I know there's quite the few above G7a, even though G7a gives you (close to) godlike powers over the untrained. What purpose do the higher amps serve, aside from being able to hand everything it's own ass?

Let's address each part of that.

Did I "find" it? Not in those terms. It came to me while I was relaxing in the bathtub after seeing Titan AE. The end part of the movie was significant to me. It was an epiphany from my inner, as much of Omni stuff is (at least most of the amps). Do you honestly think I'm so cool that I could have figuired out what I know in a meer 14 years? I'm smart, but I'm not THAT smart. No, what is taught in Omni represent the acheivement of MANY MANY lifetimes of work. More than I care to admit here. Since 2001-2002 would be considered "new work" (which has been quite screwed up and beyond comprehension I might add, but I do comprehend it strangely enough). If you spend each lifetime taking the same amount of time to relearn what you did as it took to learn it/discover it in the first place, you would never get anywhere. Omnimancy represents many lives work, and not just mine, but other people's too. Do you know HOW many people HOW many years it took just to upgrade ONE small component in your computer? And these are SMART people. Some of what in Omni is new this lifetime, not just to me but everyone in it. Most isn't (although the true higher end stuff is new at this point and just quite creepy). A good chunk of Omnimancy is stuff that other people knew coming in adding to the whole. Which is where you hear about the "tech trading sessions" come into play. Much of what is taught (at least lower end stuff) just reminds you what you can already do (at least in most), and as you discover what you already know, you (likely) will add it to the group's pile of goodies. You do that because you realize that everyone else is doing the same and for the little bit you donate you get a massive amount of stuff back. What might have taken you years or decades to figuire out, someone might have had a different view and therefore an already upgraded answer. And you might be able to do the same thing too for them. And then taking all this new knowledge and discovering what else new can be done. Perhaps now you understand why Omnis are as powerful as they are, considering the pool of knowledge they potientially have access to. And that knowledge pool grows. (Now to get off my soapbox)

The concept of Tech was reverse engineered. But once understood, could be made into MANY new things beyond the original. However, I've been talking to someone via email who has SUCCESSFULLY taken what is on the public site and in the forums and is doing primative tech experiments and it's blowing his mind. Meaning, he has successfully created a tech machine spell from scratch. He calls it an engine and has just blown him away with what it can do. It's not the most stable thing in the world, but it's a prototype. I've asked him to post his findings on this forum, and he said he will. I hope that people will finally understand this underlying concept. Since he's coming from your level of understanding of it (perhaps less), his discoveries of how to make it work is rather enlightening. Let me put it this way, we all grow up with the microchip and what it can do. But we didn't invent it. While I might have taken the microchip and ran with it so to speak, I already had the microchip to work with. He's taking my public notes and has successfully recreated a prototype. (Yes, I'm proud of it.) So it's not under Omni docterine of secrecy since he made it. (Admittedly from the public notes but still it's a GREAT acheivement, at least for me because it's kind of a missing link to the past. Meaning it's not unlike a modern sailor looking at a primative boat cut from a tree trunk and just going "Wow, this is how it all started!").

How do you develope new amps. Well, you have to understand the fundemental issues of amping someone and what your trying to achieve. Power structures, energy flows, their effect on each other, etc. An understand of what needs to be improved and how to improve it. Which is why KNOWING how and why things work matter, not just that they do. You can't improve an abstraction. Come up with a practical way of changing things to one's advantage. Each amp does it a different and more powerful way. Each representing a new discovery. Students HAVE created amps. Not many, but they have. 1 is already in the standard training now(UG4). The others, well, we will see since they are above the current power cap for students.

What purpose do the higher amp serve other than kicking ass? Many people have asked that VERY same question. Some have refused G7a because of that (most took it later on). While G7+ DOES make you more powerful and therefore more potientially competent, if you limit yourself to how things worked before, it doesn't have much use. It allows a more fundemental understanding of the multiverse, and therefore a greater control (and obviously more power). If that isn't your thing, then besides blowing people up, it isn't for you. For me, understanding why and how things work is VERY important, and for many Omnis it is too. You start to be able to do fundemental things you simply couldn't do before or even concieve of before, which is the point. It's a scary thing when your faced with the truth and reality of it. It's a lot of responsibility too, but with power comes responsibility. Honestly, I have new amps at this point that I know HOW to make and use, but I don't because there isn't too much of a point. I've been TOO successful if you can believe that. The focus must be shifted to something OTHER than just "more power". My understanding needs to catch up to my magical "muscle".

[LordArt]

Whoops. Sorry about skipping these posts. I somehow skipped them.

Given what you've explained there about Hard magic... How does it relate to the physical world? Does energy have a certain 'gravity', pulling more of itself in to form larger masses/'wads'?

No. Hard magics or rather magic normally that dense by definition doesn't want to stay together. Hence why Hard Magic is more special than just it's dense energy. That's a side bonus.

If that were the case, I'd imagine the 'gravity' effect could be harnassed in it's own right. But then even something simple like an energy ball would create a disturbance and a localised 'pool' of gravity, wouldn't it.

There is no gravity effect that I've seen. At least not the way your talking about it. It's harder to hide hard magic because it DOES create more noticable "ripples" in the dimentional fabric, but you have to know what your looking for.

I'm just trying to figure out how hard magic can remain solid with no external input...I believe I've experienced hard magic before. Would I be correct in assuming 'materials' are hard magic? I remember a few things I've been shown that stayed coherent with no power-source and were still untouchable (not just to me, but to other people I was with. Including a G4)

Your correct. Hard magic is advanced materials tech. Or at least what we use anyways. What is yielded by the G6 DOES actually disappate over a few days to a week because it's outside it's natural environment. However, if one uses the output from a UG4, it can prevent complete disappation and keep the spell functional indefinately. (Which is another reason to teach UG4 and G6 simo)

Keep in mind materials tech exists well below getting to hard magic. As far as hard magic staying together, as you know, you can make a material naturally absorbtive, so the normal astral environment is quite sufficient to maintain the hard magic material indefinately. It's actually a LOT more complicated then that, but it's good enough for a layman explanation. But needless to say, anything that would normally be lost is prevented from doing so by either replishment or simply removing the tendency to disappate (depends on the material). Hard Magic (as we use it) is VERY complicated materials tech.

You mentioned in one of your posts, even at G6 you aren't 'creating' hard magic. Does the G6 amp give you the ability to remold and relocate the superdense energy, then? Or is there something else I'm missing

Well, there are other things about G6 of course, but yes, it does what you say there from a certain point of view. I'm being purposely vague here because I'm being 20 questioned to death about it and I'm going to have a manuel for it up here before I know it if I'm not careful.

It's really good, aside from the learning aspect, to get that cold splash of water in the face and see again how limited my understanding of things are.

Oooh, that never stops. If it does, your doing something wrong.

I think I'd be correct in saying all you can assume about Omnimancy is: On the forums, we've barely even seen the tip of the ice-berg *laughs*

I'm glad I'm getting that point across.

It's not so much "gravity" as the sheer density, itself, I ASSUME. Like a REALLY dense energy ball will take months, or years to by corrupted/fade away just from enviromental whatnots...

Natural hard magic works this way yes. And even "unnatural" hard magic has this tendency if by it's nature didn't counter it.

Powersourceless mods/tech is probably made to have it longevity in one of three ways. The most obvious is that it's really "hard" magic, the most-likely-to-come-from-me (and I think it's unlikely consdiering the Omni in general...) is it works with the energy body such that it's alomst a symbiotic thing

Ouch ouch ouch...that would be painful. Considering the amount of power your talking about if your talking hard magic, it would damage something or far worse.

, the field maintaining the tech that makes it strong...

It's the nature of the tech itself. Meaning, that is one of it's designed in properties. And no, it's not as simple as "I don't want it to disappate so it doesn't" thing. Just like your monitor is designed to emit light, certain tech can be designed to help against or prevent disappation. But like getting your monitor to emit light, a method needs to be developed that works with magical physics.

Probably the density though, given the amount of importance he gives the G6...

Denisity has it's own inherant properties and uses that are rather impressive. The importance to the G6 is far more than the density. That's just the parts I'm talking about openly.

Then there's three, I've only seen a few bits of omni-tech ever... they aren't "constructs," at first they seem like it, but they really aren't... it's more a series of independent magical prcesses, as best as I know how to describe it, no doubt LordArt could/maybe even would describe them better...

Honestly, that's a very apt description. It's constructs within constructs within Constructs and that doesn't even really do it justice. Hence the utter bitch it is to describe it to people. I like your "series of independent magical processess" analogy though. There is a group of entities that I've run across that don't do tech like we know it, but they do it(or rather simular effects) by "a series of independent magical processes". More like martial art katas but in the mind. Facinating people with a VERY inherant understanding of dimentional physics, but I digress.

As for the iceberg metaphor, I couldn't agree more, that's the reason it's almost silly to ask questions and make assumptions based on my rather comparitively limited experience as I did above .But until they stop being this way, we'll just have to pick the limeted carcass of information here... or until they decide to start "stepping up to the plate and grabbing the bull by the horns" (intended as humor/a saying of my fathers) and processing students faster, in the meantime, everything we say is guesswork, from a point of ignorance... by no fault of our own.

"Processing students faster" would be BAD(tm) . Most can't handle it faster or they end up doing without understanding, and when the training stops they are floating in the breeze. The spaced students are kinda scary.

Whilst it's true they don't give out much information (in the overall scheme of things), there's still a massive amount to digest on these boards. I wouldn't say our ignorance isn't our fault, mind you.

Well you COULD take what you have and actually start your OWN research. Others have. Just another possibility.

I'm probably in a bit of a different situation (I've had extensive contact with various Omnimancers in the past and present), but if I've been unsure of things I'll ask questions, rather than assume knowledge.

There is nothing wrong with asking. Worst case your refused, but at least you tried. Sometimes HOW you ask a question will yield more than others, as your probably found out even in this thread.

What you mean by the 'density'... Are you trying to say there's so much energy packed into the space that even if it dissipates at the same rate as 'gaseous' magic spells do, it'll remain strong and 'together' for much longer?

That theory would work, until it comes to the Hard magic still performing tasks and such. Stuff that would shed the energy at a much-increased rate. With regular tech, it stops functioning if you disconnect the power source (an effective attack at times, really), but hard magic will keep on going on.

Hard magic will stop it's extra functions too if unpowered, it just won't disappate like it's gasious counterparts. Gasious tech WILL break down over time if not powered. There are many uses of hard magic that just use it's natural properties so doesn't require extra power at all. Since hard magic=designer materials tech that makes it more of a useable side function. Admittedly, back to the first paragraph above, I've used bricks of hard magic to power other magic (including other hard magic). Sort of a cheezy battery high-end battery, especially if I know it's going to be a throw-away like a healing spell which is only meant to last for a specific period of time. The beauty there is it acts more like a capacitor so the other spell can draw as much power as it needs at any one time without it mattering. Meanwhile the hardmagic is getting slowly eaten away by the rest of the spell. It makes things more self-contained since there is just THAT much energy there to be worked from.

One should also keep in mind that once your doing hard magic, there are other things that you can do to "have it generate it's own energy" so it might look like the hard magic is in itself self powering it's own functions. Ok, so I guess it is. The power source series after the series described in the above post does allow the entire material to be excess power generating (rather massively actually) and STILL allow other functions. Keep in mind, no energy is "created" it's just extracted from whatever ("fuel", dimentional techtonics, etc.)

[miri]

Powersourceless mods/tech is probably made to have it longevity in one of three ways. The most obvious is that it's really "hard" magic, the most-likely-to-come-from-me (and I think it's unlikely consdiering the Omni in general...) is it works with the energy body such that it's alomst a symbiotic thing

Ouch ouch ouch...that would be painful. Considering the amount of power your talking about if your talking hard magic, it would damage something or far worse.

Not if it's what you say it is (the energy the superstructure is made of), then it wouldn't cause damage, but be well within the homeostasis of your field (which is flexible anyway) it all depends on how you use it... that is if I'm actually starting to understand Omnimancy and this "G6" tech/amp/mod thingy.

Then there's three, I've only seen a few bits of omni-tech ever... they aren't "constructs," at first they seem like it, but they really aren't... it's more a series of independent magical prcesses, as best as I know how to describe it, no doubt LordArt could/maybe even would describe them better...

Honestly, that's a very apt description. It's constructs within constructs within Constructs and that doesn't even really do it justice. Hence the utter bitch it is to describe it to people. I like your "series of independent magical processess" analogy though.

Thanks; exactly.

As for the iceberg metaphor, I couldn't agree more, that's the reason it's almost silly to ask questions and make assumptions based on my rather comparitively limited experience as I did above .But until they stop being this way, we'll just have to pick the limeted carcass of information here... or until they decide to start "stepping up to the plate and grabbing the bull by the horns" (intended as humor/a saying of my fathers) and processing students faster, in the meantime, everything we say is guesswork, from a point of ignorance... by no fault of our own.

"Processing students faster" would be BAD(tm) . Most can't handle it faster or they end up doing without understanding, and when the training stops they are floating in the breeze. The spaced students are kinda scary.

Well, if the information on this forum (that I have access to) is just what you feel comfertable sharing, then I totally agree, this is an amazing integration of so many schools of thought that is resembles no school of thought, it's amazing...

Keep in mind, I created the power source. The power source isn't "creating" energy. It uses "fuel" and transforms it into usable energy. The difference in "creating" a power source rather than tapping in on one is that now one is able to have a spell that effectively can add massive amounts of power to other spells and yield more power than naturally occuring power sources (at least accessable ones). The "fuel" is rather abundant. (I wrote more here but I erased it getting too indepth. Like anything higher up, the bigger it is, the more it hurts when it screws up, so I don't want people trying to make mini-versions and finding the balance point doesn't work without sufficent magical stength and hurting themselves or worse)

Just when I think I understand what you're saying you go and make it complicated again. Alright at first I thought you meant like a SUPER-DUPER nexus-type thing, but that above makes it seem more like a highly efficient conversion unit, which is it? If it is jsut a converter, I don't see why it destroyed the shield, wouldn't it just leave it as useable, depatternized energy, or is that wrong too?? Please, clarify.

[LordArt]

Powersourceless mods/tech is probably made to have it longevity in one of three ways. The most obvious is that it's really "hard" magic, the most-likely-to-come-from-me (and I think it's unlikely consdiering the Omni in general...) is it works with the energy body such that it's alomst a symbiotic thing

Ouch ouch ouch...that would be painful. Considering the amount of power your talking about if your talking hard magic, it would damage something or far worse.

Not if it's what you say it is (the energy the superstructure is made of), then it wouldn't cause damage, but be well within the homeostasis of your field (which is flexible anyway) it all depends on how you use it... that is if I'm actually starting to understand Omnimancy and this "G6" tech/amp/mod thingy.

When I think of a symbiotic relationship I think of energy transfer. And if your transfering a LOT of energy, especially in and out of a spiritual body that isn't hardened against it, that's bad. That's what I'm refering to. Yeah, if it's a hard magic overcoat, then sure, there's no problem because there is no real energy transfer to speak of. I just did want people to try to cycle that much energy through themselves like I thought because that would be painful.

Well, if the information on this forum (that I have access to) is just what you feel comfertable sharing, then I totally agree, this is an amazing integration of so many schools of thought that is resembles no school of thought, it's amazing...

Hence the name Omnimancy. As egotistical of a name people say it is, there is ACTUALLY a real reason why it stuck. It's also why when people go to my lectures like 5 people get it and the rest leave with their heads about to explode wondering what they just saw. They can't wrap their mind around it because it's unlike the normal magic that they practice so they can't put it into a reference point and they aren't use to that.

Keep in mind, I created the power source. The power source isn't "creating" energy. It uses "fuel" and transforms it into usable energy. The difference in "creating" a power source rather than tapping in on one is that now one is able to have a spell that effectively can add massive amounts of power to other spells and yield more power than naturally occuring power sources (at least accessable ones). The "fuel" is rather abundant. (I wrote more here but I erased it getting too indepth. Like anything higher up, the bigger it is, the more it hurts when it screws up, so I don't want people trying to make mini-versions and finding the balance point doesn't work without sufficent magical stength and hurting themselves or worse)

Just when I think I understand what you're saying you go and make it complicated again. Alright at first I thought you meant like a SUPER-DUPER nexus-type thing, but that above makes it seem more like a highly efficient conversion unit, which is it? If it is jsut a converter, I don't see why it destroyed the shield, wouldn't it just leave it as useable, depatternized energy, or is that wrong too?? Please, clarify.

Keep in mind, all energy sources are getting their energy somehow from something else. Think of your car. It's burning fuel. That fuel came from oil, which came from dinosaurs that ate plants that got their energy from the sun which gets it's energy from fusion of hydrogen into helium, etc. Even a nuclear reactor is breaking down Uranium from it's natural state to a lessor state, but that's it's fuel. But that fuel is simply converting stored energy into usable energy (in this case, heat, and the former case (your car's gas) heat and kinetic energy (explosive)). Ley lines are just collections of run off energy from living things and other energy sources.

The reactors that I was discussing when mentioning G7a uses a fuel which has a VASTE amount of energy potiential, so when used, it releases that potiential as the explained result. As an analogy, if you had a 1-ton block of anti-matter and could hold it stable, and use only the amount you wanted, how many milligrams a day would you need to power the planet's electrical supply? How long would it take you go through that 1-ton block? What happens if that block is almost infinately larger? In the end, it's a finite resource, but one uses so little for the yield that it's virtually negligible. However, it IS converting energy from a stored form (for our use, that isn't it's original purpose) to useable energy. That's all any reactor or power source does. Convert.

As far as the beam goes on the shield, it overloaded it to the point of self-disintegration. Nothing was actually destroyed in a true aniliation sense, but the shield was no longer a shield. The energy that made it up and was functionally doing something (as a shield) flew apart from the violent overload and there was nothing left to keep together. That energy still technically existed, it just didn't have any semblence of a spell anymore and might as well have been background energy. It was like pluging your walkman directly into a 220 outlet.

The REAL feat was containing such a reaction to make it usable. Hence why as a power source it was rather unique at the time. It's also why you needed G7a to have the strength to create it and start the reaction. Some more inventive UG4s found that they could get one running if they worked in pairs. (And in true Omni fashion figuired out a hack to make a stable one at UG4 level. Killed it for 50% power loss just to redirect the remaining 50% to keep itself from flying apart but it worked. The remaining 50% was still worth the effort. If you had enough of them, a single UG4 person could use the output of the others to help get one running by themselves). The G5 one was more of a joke. It did like a 5% yield and he couldn't do any of it, all the bigger people had to build it for him. But he could maintain it without red-lining. That's Omnis for you though.

[miri]

When I think of a symbiotic relationship I think of energy transfer. And if your transfering a LOT of energy, especially in and out of a spiritual body that isn't hardened against it, that's bad. That's what I'm refering to. Yeah, if it's a hard magic overcoat, then sure, there's no problem because there is no real energy transfer to speak of. I just did want people to try to cycle that much energy through themselves like I thought because that would be painful.

Major energy transfer remaining within one sphere of conciousness (field) is ussualy quite possible to adjust to painlessly if it's a gradual change, no matter how great... the first BIG energy output multiplying mod I'd used/made/seen was a great example, you could adjust it from just a twenty times a normal field to infinity (as far as ever foreseeable/tested, anyway).

Hence the name Omnimancy. As egotistical of a name people say it is, there is ACTUALLY a real reason why it stuck. It's also why when people go to my lectures like 5 people get it and the rest leave with their heads about to explode wondering what they just saw. They can't wrap their mind around it because it's unlike the normal magic that they practice so they can't put it into a reference point and they aren't use to that.

I can understand that... The name cerianately fits...

Keep in mind, all energy sources are getting their energy somehow from something else. Think of your car. It's burning fuel. That fuel came from oil, which came from dinosaurs that ate plants that got their energy from the sun which gets it's energy from fusion of hydrogen into helium, etc. Even a nuclear reactor is breaking down Uranium from it's natural state to a lessor state, but that's it's fuel. But that fuel is simply converting stored energy into usable energy (in this case, heat, and the former case (your car's gas) heat and kinetic energy (explosive)). Ley lines are just collections of run off energy from living things and other energy sources.

The reactors that I was discussing when mentioning G7a uses a fuel which has a VASTE amount of energy potiential, so when used, it releases that potiential as the explained result. As an analogy, if you had a 1-ton block of anti-matter and could hold it stable, and use only the amount you wanted, how many milligrams a day would you need to power the planet's electrical supply? How long would it take you go through that 1-ton block? What happens if that block is almost infinately larger? In the end, it's a finite resource, but one uses so little for the yield that it's virtually negligible. However, it IS converting energy from a stored form (for our use, that isn't it's original purpose) to useable energy. That's all any reactor or power source does. Convert.

As far as the beam goes on the shield, it overloaded it to the point of self-disintegration. Nothing was actually destroyed in a true aniliation sense, but the shield was no longer a shield. The energy that made it up and was functionally doing something (as a shield) flew apart from the violent overload and there was nothing left to keep together. That energy still technically existed, it just didn't have any semblence of a spell anymore and might as well have been background energy. It was like pluging your walkman directly into a 220 outlet.

I see the point... However in an extremely rare cases (in my experience) if there's any fuel involved I'm unaware of it, and wouldn't readily expect that it was unique...

The REAL feat was containing such a reaction to make it usable. Hence why as a power source it was rather unique at the time. It's also why you needed G7a to have the strength to create it and start the reaction. Some more inventive UG4s found that they could get one running if they worked in pairs. (And in true Omni fashion figuired out a hack to make a stable one at UG4 level. Killed it for 50% power loss just to redirect the remaining 50% to keep itself from flying apart but it worked. The remaining 50% was still worth the effort. If you had enough of them, a single UG4 person could use the output of the others to help get one running by themselves). The G5 one was more of a joke. It did like a 5% yield and he couldn't do any of it, all the bigger people had to build it for him. But he could maintain it without red-lining. That's Omnis for you though.

These narrow-minded students couldn't think of batter ways to come up with an original super-duper powersource to make an inefficient version of your desing? They had to pair up? Either that's one unbelieveably hard piece of tech, or they simply weren't thinking about it... I'm tempted to label it silly, but won't as I'll no doubt be told of how one of them is ogre or something and be killed for saying it (or something of that generally not-good-for-miri nature)...

[miri]

... I think I'll contribute a bit more thought...

A little confused by this, though. "... G7a was first discovered and..." <- You 'found' the G7 amp? The way you've written it there implies you didn't create it so much as you found it, in a pre-created form. Either way, it leads me to question: How DO you develop new amps? I know there's quite the few above G7a, even though G7a gives you (close to) godlike powers over the untrained. What purpose do the higher amps serve, aside from being able to hand everything it's own ass?

Let's address each part of that.

Did I "find" it? Not in those terms. It came to me while I was relaxing in the bathtub after seeing Titan AE. The end part of the movie was significant to me. It was an epiphany from my inner, as much of Omni stuff is (at least most of the amps). Do you honestly think I'm so cool that I could have figuired out what I know in a meer 14 years? I'm smart, but I'm not THAT smart. No, what is taught in Omni represent the acheivement of MANY MANY lifetimes of work. More than I care to admit here. Since 2001-2002 would be considered "new work" (which has been quite screwed up and beyond comprehension I might add, but I do comprehend it strangely enough). If you spend each lifetime taking the same amount of time to relearn what you did as it took to learn it/discover it in the first place, you would never get anywhere. Omnimancy represents many lives work, and not just mine, but other people's too. Do you know HOW many people HOW many years it took just to upgrade ONE small component in your computer? And these are SMART people. Some of what in Omni is new this lifetime, not just to me but everyone in it. Most isn't (although the true higher end stuff is new at this point and just quite creepy). A good chunk of Omnimancy is stuff that other people knew coming in adding to the whole. Which is where you hear about the "tech trading sessions" come into play. Much of what is taught (at least lower end stuff) just reminds you what you can already do (at least in most), and as you discover what you already know, you (likely) will add it to the group's pile of goodies. You do that because you realize that everyone else is doing the same and for the little bit you donate you get a massive amount of stuff back. What might have taken you years or decades to figuire out, someone might have had a different view and therefore an already upgraded answer. And you might be able to do the same thing too for them. And then taking all this new knowledge and discovering what else new can be done. Perhaps now you understand why Omnis are as powerful as they are, considering the pool of knowledge they potientially have access to. And that knowledge pool grows. (Now to get off my soapbox)

Having invested much time in understanding/reccolecting of lives prior to this one I can appreciate that... Though I can't say I've ever come across such specifics intentionally...

The concept of Tech was reverse engineered. But once understood, could be made into MANY new things beyond the original. However, I've been talking to someone via email who has SUCCESSFULLY taken what is on the public site and in the forums and is doing primative tech experiments and it's blowing his mind. Meaning, he has successfully created a tech machine spell from scratch. He calls it an engine and has just blown him away with what it can do. It's not the most stable thing in the world, but it's a prototype. I've asked him to post his findings on this forum, and he said he will. I hope that people will finally understand this underlying concept. Since he's coming from your level of understanding of it (perhaps less), his discoveries of how to make it work is rather enlightening. Let me put it this way, we all grow up with the microchip and what it can do. But we didn't invent it. While I might have taken the microchip and ran with it so to speak, I already had the microchip to work with. He's taking my public notes and has successfully recreated a prototype. (Yes, I'm proud of it.) So it's not under Omni docterine of secrecy since he made it. (Admittedly from the public notes but still it's a GREAT acheivement, at least for me because it's kind of a missing link to the past. Meaning it's not unlike a modern sailor looking at a primative boat cut from a tree trunk and just going "Wow, this is how it all started!").

I guess that means you're glad to see that there are about to bea bunch of mock-omni? I think that if info on how someone managed to come up with tech on their own surfaces as such that LOTS will follow suit... though I had thought that many people had already figured tech on their own, there is enough information around to do that... I'd say I've made primitive tech myself... but is that worth bragging about? (I think not)

How do you develope new amps. Well, you have to understand the fundemental issues of amping someone and what your trying to achieve. Power structures, energy flows, their effect on each other, etc. An understand of what needs to be improved and how to improve it. Which is why KNOWING how and why things work matter, not just that they do. You can't improve an abstraction. Come up with a practical way of changing things to one's advantage. Each amp does it a different and more powerful way. Each representing a new discovery. Students HAVE created amps. Not many, but they have. 1 is already in the standard training now(UG4). The others, well, we will see since they are above the current power cap for students.

What purpose do the higher amp serve other than kicking ass? Many people have asked that VERY same question. Some have refused G7a because of that (most took it later on). While G7+ DOES make you more powerful and therefore more potientially competent, if you limit yourself to how things worked before, it doesn't have much use. It allows a more fundemental understanding of the multiverse, and therefore a greater control (and obviously more power). If that isn't your thing, then besides blowing people up, it isn't for you. For me, understanding why and how things work is VERY important, and for many Omnis it is too. You start to be able to do fundemental things you simply couldn't do before or even concieve of before, which is the point. It's a scary thing when your faced with the truth and reality of it. It's a lot of responsibility too, but with power comes responsibility. Honestly, I have new amps at this point that I know HOW to make and use, but I don't because there isn't too much of a point. I've been TOO successful if you can believe that. The focus must be shifted to something OTHER than just "more power". My understanding needs to catch up to my magical "muscle".

with sufficient "muscle" you can bully dieites/gods/whatever-you-wanna-call-ems into to tgiving you any knowledge you seek... or at least nearly... Though I suppose the point is to figure it out, more than to "just get the knowledge," which makes sense that you'd stick to considering just how far you've gotten... *shrugs* It's not like you've come to a case of knowing and not being able to progress further anyway, which I think would be equally or mroe frustrating.

[LordArt]

When I think of a symbiotic relationship I think of energy transfer. And if your transfering a LOT of energy, especially in and out of a spiritual body that isn't hardened against it, that's bad. That's what I'm refering to. Yeah, if it's a hard magic overcoat, then sure, there's no problem because there is no real energy transfer to speak of. I just did want people to try to cycle that much energy through themselves like I thought because that would be painful.

Major energy transfer remaining within one sphere of conciousness (field) is ussualy quite possible to adjust to painlessly if it's a gradual change, no matter how great... the first BIG energy output multiplying mod I'd used/made/seen was a great example, you could adjust it from just a twenty times a normal field to infinity (as far as ever foreseeable/tested, anyway).

That's all well and good, but the body adapts to this new energy transfer and changes itself to accomodate. Especially if it's over time and continuous. I remember the G4s before we "discovered" buffering(long story), it would rip our bodies apart and make one get in such pain that one vomitted if one wasn't careful. We stood for it because we got use to the power and wanted more. The problem in the G4 that caused the issue has since been fixed, but I've seen what a lot of energy going through a body can do without a SIGNIFICANT cleanup of the energy itself.

The problem there is likely desensitising the area because it becomes USE to feeling the large amount of energy rather than suttle changes. People are always complaining about their lack of good detail senses and this is a wonderful way of numbing them. As what started this, I've seen high-energy transfers to bodies that aren't ready for it, and it causes a lot of damage, or numbs it out if it was brought up less violently. For the levels of energy that I'm referring to, it's just a bad idea. Take it or leave it. I will admit there are safer ways but it isn't going in via the normal entry methods and it's for specific functions.

Keep in mind, all energy sources are getting their energy somehow from something else. Think of your car. It's burning fuel. That fuel came from oil, which came from dinosaurs that ate plants that got their energy from the sun which gets it's energy from fusion of hydrogen into helium, etc. Even a nuclear reactor is breaking down Uranium from it's natural state to a lessor state, but that's it's fuel. But that fuel is simply converting stored energy into usable energy (in this case, heat, and the former case (your car's gas) heat and kinetic energy (explosive)). Ley lines are just collections of run off energy from living things and other energy sources.

The reactors that I was discussing when mentioning G7a uses a fuel which has a VASTE amount of energy potiential, so when used, it releases that potiential as the explained result. As an analogy, if you had a 1-ton block of anti-matter and could hold it stable, and use only the amount you wanted, how many milligrams a day would you need to power the planet's electrical supply? How long would it take you go through that 1-ton block? What happens if that block is almost infinately larger? In the end, it's a finite resource, but one uses so little for the yield that it's virtually negligible. However, it IS converting energy from a stored form (for our use, that isn't it's original purpose) to useable energy. That's all any reactor or power source does. Convert.

As far as the beam goes on the shield, it overloaded it to the point of self-disintegration. Nothing was actually destroyed in a true aniliation sense, but the shield was no longer a shield. The energy that made it up and was functionally doing something (as a shield) flew apart from the violent overload and there was nothing left to keep together. That energy still technically existed, it just didn't have any semblence of a spell anymore and might as well have been background energy. It was like pluging your walkman directly into a 220 outlet.

I see the point... However in an extremely rare cases (in my experience) if there's any fuel involved I'm unaware of it, and wouldn't readily expect that it was unique...

I'm not saying all power sources require fuel. I'm just saying all power sources are getting their energy from something else and therefore converting it to a usable means, meaning, it's not just coming from no where. A ley line is a collection of energy run-off, but there has to be that spare energy in the first place to "run-off" to collect in the leylines. Sometimes the nature of the environment allows energy extraction, but there was some sort of complex (or not so complex) series of environmental reasons why one has such a power source. A good example is hydro-electric power. The river runs because gravity makes it run down hill. However, it GOT up-hill, aquiring potiential energy from evaporation from the sun then raining back at the top of the incline (whereever that might be). To the average person, it doesn't have to be this complex. "There is river, it wants to go down hill, and the river is always there. Infinite energy from no-where." Well, it isn't infinite and if the environment changes, that river disappears and then what? Besides, by definition, that power source has a finite amount of power (yield) it can give at any one time (mostly based on the volume of the river).

As far as fuel based power sources, as I mentioned, we used natural and non-fuel based (per se) power sources before this. This new (at the time) powersource just gave us a FAR greater yield than the others did. We eventually went to a more environmentally friendly power source at a latter point that yielded even more power, but that wasn't as simple to build and REQUIRED hard magic to build by definition.

One has to keep in mind that it was important to increase the yield of power per second, hence the need to move off of naturally occuring power sources. The above power sources were simply different answers to that need.

Also, when I said the power source was "unique", I didn't mean it in the sense that no one in the multiverse had ever come across it before. I meant that no one in Omnimancy had come up with anything close at the time, in function or yield. Actually, no one had created a power source at the time at all.

The REAL feat was containing such a reaction to make it usable. Hence why as a power source it was rather unique at the time. It's also why you needed G7a to have the strength to create it and start the reaction. Some more inventive UG4s found that they could get one running if they worked in pairs. (And in true Omni fashion figuired out a hack to make a stable one at UG4 level. Killed it for 50% power loss just to redirect the remaining 50% to keep itself from flying apart but it worked. The remaining 50% was still worth the effort. If you had enough of them, a single UG4 person could use the output of the others to help get one running by themselves). The G5 one was more of a joke. It did like a 5% yield and he couldn't do any of it, all the bigger people had to build it for him. But he could maintain it without red-lining. That's Omnis for you though.

These narrow-minded students couldn't think of batter ways to come up with an original super-duper powersource to make an inefficient version of your desing? They had to pair up? Either that's one unbelieveably hard piece of tech, or they simply weren't thinking about it... I'm tempted to label it silly, but won't as I'll no doubt be told of how one of them is ogre or something and be killed for saying it (or something of that generally not-good-for-miri nature)...

Miri, why is your first reaction to insult (ie. calling the students narrow-minded) rather than consider you might not know the whole situation? I would have think that would have been proven out by now. At least your not calling it silly. I'm sure the Head of OmniNorth will like to know you consider him narrow-minded, who is incidently one of Ogre's best friends.

As far as getting the tech power source to run, yes it required a LOT of magical strength to get the spell running, so yes they had to pair up and work in conjunction at UG4 to actually get it running. It required a certain level of brute force to start the reaction because of the nature of it. While one can take tech further up and retro it for use at lower levels in many cases, this was bleeding edge at the time, there was no "higher tech" to retro down. Even the concept of retroing down didn't start until a few amps past that as it was. It was a testiment TO their abilities to make something workable at their level that really shouldn't have been able to work. The powersource itself was SO radically different, that it wasn't like it was a slight derivative of something else that they could have researched in a different direction and came up with a different answer.

Lower end tech is really easy. Higher end tech is REALLY complex. I would have thought that was obvious by now.

Having invested much time in understanding/reccolecting of lives prior to this one I can appreciate that... Though I can't say I've ever come across such specifics intentionally...

Well, it isn't like I'm sitting here remembering it all. It's more like as I progress more comes to me. A lot I figuired out "manually". However, the MAJOR leaps forwards generally just come to me but rarely. Now I understand so much that it isn't as mysterious. There is still MAJOR things that I don't understand on a conscious level. It's hard to explain understanding without knowing. It's like I understand what I'm doing, but I don't think of all the details when I do it. However, at any time if I wish to look at the details directly, they are just there. Honestly to use high-end tech/omnimacy you can't see it all at once. It would be kind of like trying to visualise every single part, screw, bolt, etc. of a car ALL at once in your mind. It would just be unwieldy, so you learn to abstract things. I do the same when viewing more than 3 dimentions at once, it's too unwieldy, so I learned to make mental abstractions so it becomes usable while still keeping the details. My experience with other Omnis they naturally fall into that method of doing things anyways. Our minds are just build that way. That's why it's far easier to actually do Omnimancy than to explain it.

I guess that means you're glad to see that there are about to bea bunch of mock-omni? I think that if info on how someone managed to come up with tech on their own surfaces as such that LOTS will follow suit... though I had thought that many people had already figured tech on their own, there is enough information around to do that... I'd say I've made primitive tech myself... but is that worth bragging about? (I think not)

Omnimancy by no means is unique in the multiverse. Actually its QUITE common. It just doesn't seem to be practiced here (earth) for some reason. At least not in an organised way. I've found some natural mages over the years who practice a form of Omnimancy, but because none of their compatriots could understand a lick of what they were doing, they kept it to themselves. The only thing unique (from what I've seen) of Omnimancy is that instead of keeping this information isolated to individuals, I've taught it to people and a lot of VERY smart people have helped to advance it far further than any single individual ever seems to have. The group itself has made Omnimancy to what it is today. Things are set up so unique individuality ADDS to the group, rather than tearing it down like it seems to in other groups. Meaning, if you learn another system, generally your trying to do things exactly what the founders of that system laid out. To become a clone of the founder, if you will. In my case, that's not how the group is organised.

Am I happy about "mock" or rival Omnimancy groups? No, but I knew it was an eventuality. Personally I expected it a lot sooner than now actually (and one person doesn't make a group). Most people don't have the leadership and/or organisational skills to make a working group. A bunch of hot-doging yah-hoos doesn't make a group, and least it doesn't advance the group. I'm also confident with the progress that HAS been made (at least in Core), that I'm not worried about rival groups. The likelyhood of the same kind of synergy taking those other hypothetical groups to the same place seems VERY unlikely.

However, I AM happy that individuals are able to take what is given and do something with it. And as you've said yourself, you probably have done a tech spell or two in the past. However, without the VASTE tech pool that is in Omnimancy, it doesn't amount to much in others without the tech knowledge pool.

with sufficient "muscle" you can bully dieites/gods/whatever-you-wanna-call-ems into to tgiving you any knowledge you seek... or at least nearly... Though I suppose the point is to figure it out, more than to "just get the knowledge," which makes sense that you'd stick to considering just how far you've gotten... *shrugs* It's not like you've come to a case of knowing and not being able to progress further anyway, which I think would be equally or mroe frustrating.

Are you really just that dumb or just fishing again? What EXACTLY makes you think that you hit a diety upside the head with a 2x4 and get it to give up their goods? And even if you had the power to do that, do you REALLY think they wouldn't take revenge for that insult in the long run? Suttlely or otherwise? Let's say you were powerful enough to do that to a single diety. What makes you think the others wouldn't gang up on you just to eliminate an upstart threat, especially if your social interaction is done with a 2x4? Of course the next obvious question would be, if you were so powerful to overrun a particular diety, why would you be asking for their information anyways? What they had obviously wasn't sufficient to stop you. So go have fun Miri, I'd love to watch.

*shakes head*

A lot of dieties are quite helpful without one threating them, which if you weren't able to overrun them, they would squash you for trying. Most act like grandparents giving candy to their grandchildren. So most will help just for the visit. So there is no need for the attitude that you suggest. It's unlikely they will give you their best stuff or anything close to it, but why should they do more?

And I have come to points in my magical carreer when I've hit brick walls. Sometimes it can last for a year or more. Sometimes discoveries flow like water. So it can go either way.